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THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY-23, 1941
STRAYS IN
IN AN
ENGLISH
SHELTER
(By Henry Trench)
THERE WAS no warning whistle when the bombs exploded; they tore the air like calico in our direction. The noise in the small basement-shelter was not so loud as one had expected, but the fourth bomb wiped away the house next door.
There wasn't time to be afraid; only the silence afterwards was a little shocking, and the smell of hot metal. Then the wardens came and drove us out to find refuge in a strange shelter. It was our turn to be strays.
p
Among the strays, too the Buur and Tchehov elements predomin- ated, there was, for example, the night of burglaries in the street above-which was unmistakably Baum,
Three men came
Strays have always interested | it and moved on a little later us uneasily £5 their feet carrying their personal histories clattered on the area stairs and with them like unopened letters: a the curtain billowed. Just so, few stayed. I suppose, do rabbits look up from their lettuces at the sound of an intruder in the burrow. Will it be a buck or doe? aggressive or apolegetic? for in our small shel- ter which was comfortable but not reassuring with a beaverboard wall there was only room for the regular population which came there every night. After a month of aerial war we had coalesced like a platoon; that was why we seemed to present a rather surly front to newcomers until they had proved friendly. Far more, I think, than bunks and free earplugs does this solidarity help to make life under-ground bearable
almost pleasant, A routine grows naturally like a plant; in the first week tea was always made after a particularly clore explosion; later the close explosions didn't matter much, so we had tea and biscuits at 9 (everyone paid a penny and took it in turns to supply tea and sugar); lights were shaded at 10, and snorers ceased te rouse angry
briskly down the steps at two in the morning, separated, and made for unoccupied chairs, then pulled other people's blankets up tu their chins. They had tight suits and ugly ears, and looked shaved for action: once a policeman gazed in, and the cautious eyes watched him from the half-dark. They and there was a burglary that night too.
came once more
"Really Interesting"
One had a racking cough; he looked accustomed to cement flours and the heavy breathing of neigh- bours. Sometimes soldiers sat shy- ly out on the area steps with girls, and onre-that was a Tchehov touch-an old philosopher with a white beard spent the night, He was a birdlover, and he had ી little birdlime on his hat. It was a noisy night; when he left he said it had been an interesting experi- ence-"really interesting." He thought he would
go into the country all the same, and sleep on For ours was a cosmopolitan a barn floor (if one had to sleep world. It was as if burrowing on floors one might as well sleep below ground, one evaded nation-¦ in a barn); there, he said, one al boundaries. Three Germans could have peaceful thoughts.
feelings toleration developed. Most wonderful ef all a Pole learnt to make strong English tea.
Even Germans
had ended a long pilgrimage there; a mother and two children. The father had been an officer in the German army: be resigned when Hitler came into power, and they fled to Austria, and then to Ams- terdam; the father had ended his journey ini Australia. Vienna, Prague and Warsaw, Amsterdam, our burrow; these were familiar stations to others too. There was an Austrian, three Czechs and a Pole; the English were only 2 bare majority. Mattresses and deckchairs left little room for chance comers, and they usually went on to a larger burrow ten vards up the street: a rafflsh place where we heard it ru- moured -the police were some- times called in to deal with drunks and gamblers. We never expect- ed to find ourselves there, in those bleak halls, smelling of old sand- bags, strays ourselves.,
That night the raid started punctually to time, and everybody was happy (perhaps it was the tranquillity Peter Rabbit felt when he knew exactly where his enemy Mr. Macgregor lurked at the mo- ment.)
A Czech lady carried round a bag of sweets, and self-reveal ing conversations started up all
over the shelter.
Thick with personal dramas and philosophies the atmosphere was
He
handed round before he left pic ture postcards of himself with sparrows nibbling the food from his lips, and repeated that it had all been very interesting.
I like to think it was a tribute to our shelter, and now that we are strays ourselves,
among the vagrant population, moving rest- lessly up and down, I am glad to remember we welcomed at least one stray. Conscience pricks one for all the unwelcomed who tried --some with feigned indignation or nervous fantasies--to make a contact: irritation was better than indifference.
Mouse Scare
RAID
NAZIS KILL
MAN FROM
GESTAPO
When a German bomb- er was shot down in the sea three Nazi airmen were seen to take to their rubber boat.
While a British rescue party were going to their ald, they suddenly saw two of the Nazis leaning over the boat pushing something under the water and hitting it.
When the party arrived they saw only two Nazis. They asked where the other one was.
"Oh,” replied one of the Nazis, who could speak some English, "we drowned him. He was a Gestapo. He has been with us on every fight for over three weeks with his revolvers stick. ing in our backs. We decided to kill him, and we have done BD."
This story is told in his parish magazine by the Rey. E. LA Ma- cassey, Vicar of Mapledurham, Oxon, who says that his facts have been passed by the Censer.
“Notable" Capture
The vicar also stated that notable Nazi airman, son of one of Hitler's most eminent ad- visers, was captured in Britain recently.
2
"He is thiry-two." the vicar adds. "and he is a son of one of the Hitler's eminent advisers in gentle art of murder from the air. right hand He was his father's man in designing Nazi aircraft.
This murderer In our hands may yet be worth quite a num ber in the tomber.
lises that Hitler cannot win, for "This young man evidently rea-
on being captured, he ripped off his special Nazi decoration and said, "I shall not want this ever again."
the
war Office it was stated they had
(At the Air Ministry and
no knowledge of the capture of cription given in the magazine.) any Nazi airman fitting the des-
U.S. TO
BUILD 200
NEW SHIPS
There was a large woman in dusty furs who woke us at two in i the morning, in the heart of the heaviest rald, to seek protection from an imaginary mouse--" there it is, there it is"-but it was only a piece of grey fluff shifting in the draught of explosions: and there
An emergency appropri- was the old drunk man who was ation of U.S.$313,000,000 scandalised at the sight of hus- bands and wives sharing mattres- for the building of two ses. "I'm a rate-payer," he kept repeating propped against the hundred new cargo ships the
will. "If I hadn't seen it with me
firmly, "I wouldn't have believed, threat of a world shipping own eyes," he said shutting them in order to meet Disgusting, it's disgusting." Screw-
ing his eyes tighter, he toppled shortage was recommend- sideways.
Well, one can understand lone-ed to-day by the House usually a cross between Grand liness now: Sometimes one salutes Appropriations Commit- Hotel and The Cheery Orchard, at a distance another member of but. more Daum perhaps than the old platoun, but we are in- tee of the House of Repre- Tebehov, for the plot was a vio-dividuals; the solidarity is gone, and for the first time we are all aware of insecurity.
lent one.
"Bomb Will Fall”
Between the thuds of the bar- rage a young man explained to a girl the 'secret of contentment (he made it sound very cusy): the Pole tried to improve his English: two women discussed babies, and a Czech told fortunes roguishly in a teacup. “A bomb will full,” ho said, and everyone laughed,
HAD BEER NOW THEY'VE GOT TIGHT
sentatives.
This followed the statement by. Rear-Admiral Land, Chairman of the Committee, to the effect that the sinking of merchantmen by German submarines and 'planes was the principal reason for the new programme.
+6
1
The money will be handled by the Maritime Commission which har already begun the prelimin Fary work or the programme.............
The new cargo ships will be almplified with a uniform de-
Rear Admiral Land estimated that the first ships will be ready éleven months after the contract
Soon, as the noise of the barrage - lifted, and the enemy engines be When Police-Constable Tight gan to probe inwards, the time for was sworn in as a member of the the strays arrived--who had to | Glamorganshire, Police Force at meet the allent criticism of the | Whitchurch, the county get-up' a platoon. Some used to resent it, record for the cheeriost police and disappear during a full,to- | quartet in Britain, wards the rafflsh shelter, dropping In the Witchurch force there has been placed and the total pro- disparaging: remarks, Ineffective are now, constables named among the bombs, others Ignored Bright, Beer and Tight
Merry,gramme will be finished in two
years' time. Reuter.